A private sector team working to evacuate American citizens and vulnerable allies from Afghanistan has reportedly been stonewalled by the Biden administration.
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Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist Robert Stryk, who first organized the operation, told The Daily Caller he and his team have reached out to the White House “dozens and dozens” of times since Aug. 14, but have yet to receive a response from anyone in President Joe Biden’s administration.
Stryk and former Republican congressman and U.S. Navy SEAL Scott Taylor are using donor funding to arrange flights from Kabul to nearby countries for around the same price as commercial flights prior to the calamitous U.S. military exit earlier this month.
The operation is intended to safely evacuate Americans and Afghan allies who worked with the U.S. who are trapped in the country, which has since been overrun by the Taliban terror group.
While Stryk praised the U.K. And South Africa for their “awesome and heroic” actions in getting people out of Afghanistan, he rebuked the Biden administration for failing to take swifter action.
“What I am witnessing every day is the very best and the very worst of America,” he said. “I have seen the humanity of private citizens who are contacting me and pledging their time, monies, and, in some cases, their lives to bring our citizens and these Afghan patriots out of harm’s way, while at the time, personally experiencing the Biden administration’s abject failure to protect its citizens and those Afghans that fought and worked alongside of us.”
“It’s morally reprehensible,” Stryk added. “It’s been the U.S. private sector who has stepped in to save the blood and treasure the Biden administration is leaving behind.”
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Taylor, for his part, said he has been bombarded not only with people eager to leave Afghanistan but with donors ready to infuse the project with more cash.
Accomplishing the task at hand, though, has been difficult, he said, given the lack of cooperation from the federal government.
“I can’t get ahold of anybody,” Taylor explained. “I understand that our country may be trying to control everything or maintain it, but, in so doing, they’re impeding things. And people are desperate and people are gonna die. People will die the longer this goes out. It’s just gonna happen.”
Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck organized a similar effort through his charity, The Nazarene Fund, raising more than $28 million to evacuate Afghan Christians from the Middle Eastern country.
Beck said via Instagram that, by the end of the week, the charity “will be able to move 7,000 Christians” out of harm’s way, calling the effort — which came together in just a matter of days — “pretty remarkable.”
“We need your prayers for people in countries who get cold feet,” he said, noting neighboring nations taking refugees are putting themselves in harms’ way.
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